Becoming a Birder

I have read Have You Heard the Nesting Bird, by Rita Gray, a few times now with my class and it has quickly become a favorite for all of us. The kids love it because they get to hear me make funny bird noises and they don’t have to sit quietly while I read it. The story is short and sweet, it has some rhyme and a lot of rhythm to it, and the illustrations are beautiful and interesting. This story led to a great conversation where each kid shared a few of their favorite or recent experiences with birds. And after only a few reads, the kids have learned the names and corresponding calls of a handful of common birds, many of which we’ve seen right out the windows of our classroom. We are lucky that our classroom has big windows and a patch of forest to look out on, so birds are a common sight. Since we started reading this story together, the kids in my class have taken a keen interest in the local wildlife and have finally started to regularly peruse and refer to the Maine Field Guide I brought in months ago.

The first time I read the Nesting Bird (which is a Robin), I offered a game of Bird Bingo as a follow up activity, and just like the book, the game has quickly become a favorite in our room. The illustrations are beautiful and since we've started playing, the kids have significantly expanded their naturalist vocabularies and can recognize a whole slew of new birds, many of which even I hadn’t known before being introduced to this game. Bingo is a great way for kids to practice important social skills like cooperation, organizing others, following the rules of a game, and turn taking. A specialty bingo game, like this one also provides a fantastic way for kids to connect with and deepen an interest they have developed. Back in Seattle, one of the boys in my preschool class was fascinated by dinosaurs and brought in his dinosaur bingo game. We offered it as an activity in our science area and there was one of the most popular choices at work time. After a few weeks of playing this game regularly, we all were able to name and classify tons of different kinds of dinosaurs, many of which again, I hadn’t been previously familiar with.

There are many different picture books featuring birds that would likely provoke similar interests in the subject of ornithology, such as Birds by Kevin Henkes, or Counting Is for the Birds by Frank Mazzola, Jr., to name a few. I happened to come across the Nesting Bird at my local library, completely by accident, and because I have a personal interest in birds, and I had been dying to find an opportunity to introduce our bird bingo game, I pulled it out one day after we spotted a bright Blue Jay out the window. Months ago I had set my Maine bird guide on the window sill near the science area with a pair of binoculars to accompany it, but the kids had taken little notice, only occasionally flipping through the book and usually using the binoculars for dramatic play games. After we read the Nesting Bird in our circle time meeting, I reintroduced the field guide and the kids finally started using it regularly, seeking out the birds they know, pointing out their favorites, and asking me to read the names and feeding/migration information provided on each bird’s profile page. So we can keep building on this growing interest in birds, I requested, and quickly received from our school's director, a bird feeder to hang outside our window. I can’t wait to get hung and see what kinds of visitors will provide us with the opportunity to catch a glimpse into their aerial world.

Hello from Hawaii! The start of the Nature series

Have I mentioned yet that I am currently stationed in Hawaii?? I guess I probably should. At the end of 2012, I left Seattle, and my beloved preschool, Bella Mente, with my partner Dylan in search of a home. Ever since I left for college and my mom moved into a new house, I have been leading this transient, “move-every year” lifestyle. Although Dylan and I set out for Seattle with the possibility of it becoming our new home, we quickly realized that it was too far from family and lacked that clichéd home-sweet-home feeling. His family always rented and they moved around all the time so both of us decided that it was high time we find ourselves a place to settle into more permanently.

As we pulled up to the farm for the first time I thought to myself, Hawaii is going to be good for us

It’s kind of a long story and I’m not going to get into the details, but we ended up in Hawaii for four months, which is even further from home than Seattle was since we are both from New England, but in the long run this is bringing us closer to what we are ultimately seeking. The Central Coast of Maine is where we plan to make our home once we are ready. So then why Hawaii, one might ask. Well the idea of home, is about more than just a location and a house for us, it is about a lifestyle and the lifestyle we are after is one of self-sufficiency. We want to become farmers, and so we are in Hawaii through the WWOOF program, learning to live off the land and test out the farming life. At the same time, we are giving ourselves the chance to have one last big and crazy adventure, refresh ourselves and develop some healthier habits, and get some much needed Vitamin D.  

www.thegardenofenchantment.com

Since I am going to be surrounded by nature for the next few months, I have decided to start my first series of themed blog posts on the subject. This topic is a big one and will definitely require being broken down into multiple posts to avoid overwhelming you, my wonderful readers. It made sense to me to do this now since I was going to get to it at some point anyway. If you have been to my Pinterest page, you’ll notice I devote quite a bit of energy to showcasing various ways of incorporating the natural world into the lives of children, in the classroom and the home.

Following the Reggio Approach, I believe that by surrounding children with natural accents and materials, and exposing them to real live nature, we as educators and parents can help foster a relationship between the two. Children who grow up connected with their environment and the natural world grow up with a deeper respect for it and that makes a huge difference. We need more children who will grow into adults who care about and want to live in harmony with our planet rather than continuing to deplete it until it is all dried up. We need creative thinkers who will work with rather than against their environments to create a more sustainable and successful future for everyone.

Great example of a nature-infused classroom from http://earlylife.com.au/info/

Nature is on my mind and is deeply entrenched in my everyday experience and my current work with children, or with little K anyway. K is the going-on-two year old daughter of our host family whom I spend a good chunk of my time with each weekday (about 3-4 hours each morning), hanging out on the farm and learning together. You are bound to hear more about my adventures with K throughout the next few months while we are in Hawaii since I get to give her my everything as a teacher. It has been a while since I’ve done one-on-one work with kids but I am super excited. My biggest frustration working at a big preschool was that I never had enough time, energy or attention to give to each child in my class. Now K has my undivided every day and I get to experience the opposite end of the spectrum for a while.

The roaming chicken coop in the mango orchard at K's house

We just finished our first week of work here at the farm so K and I are still getting to know one another and I am still getting to know the farm, the island, and the people who I am sharing this beautiful space with. It is amazing having come from working with urban children in Seattle to be here working with a little one who spends her days among the food in the garden, the geckos all around us, and the hot, hot sun. In the mornings we feed the chickens together and walk around the farm checking on the progress of the various crops until the hot sun sends us inside to read in the cool of K’s tile-covered bedroom floor.

Since Dylan and I have arrived on the farm, K has taken a serious interest in food and cooking. A few weeks ago she began weaning off of nursing and eating more and more solid foods. At first, her mother told me, she was quite resistant but suddenly she has become an adventurous little eater, more so than most adults I know. At her age, she is soaking everything in like a sponge so being around the garden and so many people who work with and love good food means that she is beginning to develop quite the sophisticated palate.

One of K's salads ready to eat!

We spend at least an hour each morning in food-related creative play games and actual preparation of meals for her. The first night we arrived, we had a family dinner that featured a big salad that K watched her mother prepare. Since then, she and I have been making “salads” for Dylan as he works nearby. K’s salads consist of shredded leaves that were trimmed and discarded off the hedges by her house and we put them in a wooden salad bowl. I ask her how she wants to dress them and sometimes she wants salad dressing, other times she prefers just olive oil and salt, and sometimes she wants pepper, mangoes, and avocado too. She tosses it with her hands and gets a stick that she calls a fork and we deliver it to Dylan, who kindly pretends to eat her carefully prepared meal.

Her interest in food has got me thinking about fashioning an outdoor play kitchen for little K so we can take her creative play to another level, introducing new dishes, new kitchen tools, and new preparations methods. This way K can continue to pursue her newfound interest in cooking and eating while at the same time developing those essential fine motor skills as she rips and grasps and handles the materials. Over time I have collected a handful of great examples of play kitchens on Pinterest and will continue to add a ton more as I delve deeper into my research on the topic so check out and follow my education boards for more inspiration for your own classrooms and homes.

I love this outdoor play kitchen set up from pre-schoolplay.blogspot.com

Though most kids at some point take an interest in kitchen play, K is not yet two and her knowledge of food and her adventurous palate are likely connected to her upbringing here on the farm. She spends a lot of time around food in every stage of its production and so almost nothing on her plate is unfamiliar to her. Growing up as an active participant in her own nourishment will likely be a valuable asset to her in the future and I know it makes life a lot easier for her parents who never have to worry about what to feed her. K takes part in deciding what she eats and her preferences right now are eggs, fish, mangoes, raspberries, purple potatoes, broccoli, kefir, olives, and she’s always up for trying something new.

The main garden of the farm where K helps harvest her dinners, she loves to nibble on the broccoli florets as we go.

I have already salvaged an old frying pan that a neighbor was throwing away and so hopefully by the end of the week I will have a good start on K’s play kitchen to show you and more stories to report about K’s continued interest in food. If there’s anything I have learned so far in my week with K it is that continued exposure to a wide variety of foods certainly impacts what a child will and won’t eat. K also happens to be a pretty strong-willed little girl so I’m willing to bet that getting a say as to what goes into her meals makes a big difference too. Her only options are healthy ones so it really doesn’t matter what she picks because anything she chooses is going to be good for her. Being a food person myself, she’s my kind of eater and I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

This simple model from natureforkids.net is similar to what I'll try to fashion for K